Wealth inequality in America worse than you think it is

This video on wealth inequality in the U.S. has gone viral within days, and for good reason. It painstakingly goes through several graphics to get across some basic, staggering facts about who owns America.

The data used in the video is from 2007. Data from 2010 show that it’s getting even worse. There has been a 4% shift in the distribution curve from poorer to wealthier. The top 10% of the population own 77% of wealth (up from 73%), and the bottom 90% own 23% of wealth (down from 27%).

Net worth and financial wealth distribution in the U.S. in 2010 (Source: E.N. Wolff, The Asset Price Meltdown and the Wealth of the Middle Class, NY: NYU, 2012)

If you want some really in-depth numbers, including the jaw-dropping racial disparities, see this article by G. William Domhoff of the University of California, Santa Cruz. The bottom line: “Since financial wealth is what counts as far as the control of income-producing assets, we can say that just 10% of the people own the United States of America.”

The video is not only presents the facts so we can “get” them but points out the gap between reality and perception. We get that things are skewed. Yet we so vastly underestimate the extent of wealth inequality that you have to wonder whether the myth of a classless America is so impermeable and right-wing propaganda so relentless, that we simply can’t see what is staring us in the face.